16 © 2017 The Authors Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.

1 | 2017

Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated

vacuum membrane distillation system
Fang Wang, Shixuan Wang, Jin Li, Dongsheng Xia and Jianshe Liu

ABSTRACT
Fang Wang
This study designed and tested a novel type of solar-energy-integrated vacuum membrane distillation
Jianshe Liu (corresponding author)
(VMD) system for seawater desalination under actual environmental conditions in Wuhan, China. The State Environmental Protection Engineering Center
for Pollution Treatment and Control in Textile
system consists of eight parts: a seawater tank, solar collector, solar cooker, inclined VMD Industry,
College of Environmental Science and Engineering,
evaporator, circulating water vacuum pump, heat exchanger, fresh water tank, and brine tank. Donghua University,
Shanghai 201620,
Natural seawater was used as feed and a hydrophobic hollow-fiber membrane module was used to
China
improve seawater desalination. The experiment was conducted during a typical summer day. Results E-mail: liujianshe@dhu.edu.cn
W
showed that when the highest ambient temperature was 33 C, the maximum value of the average Shixuan Wang
Jin Li
2 2
solar intensity was 1,080 W/m . The system was able to generate 36 kg (per m membrane module) Dongsheng Xia
Engineering Research Center for Clean Production
distilled fresh water during 1 day (7:00 am until 6:00 pm), the retention rate was between 99.67 and of Textile Dyeing and Printing, Ministry of
Education,
99.987%, and electrical conductivity was between 0.00276 and 0.0673 mS/cm. The average salt
Wuhan Textile University,
rejection was over 90%. The proposed VMD system shows favorable potential application in Wuhan 430200,
China
desalination of brackish waters or high-salt wastewater treatment, as well.
Key words | desalination, hollow-fiber membrane, seawater, solar energy, vacuum membrane
distillation

INTRODUCTION

Currently, there is an urgent need for pure, clean drinking
water in many countries across the globe. Water shortages
have become a major environmental issue that is further
impacted by global warming. Brackish water sources are
not potable due to the content of dissolved salts and harmful
bacteria. Similarly, many coastal areas have abundant sea-
water, but no safe drinking water. Distillation can be used
to purify water supply, and is one of many techniques for
desalinating seawater (Aybar et al. ). With the rapid
increase of the world population, desalination is increas-
ingly considered to be necessary and feasible. By 2025,
about 70% of the world’s population will face water shortage
problems (Li et al. ). Seawater desalination is recognized
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying,
adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
doi: 10.2166/wrd.2016.207
as one of mankind’s earliest ways of water treatment, and
it provides fresh water for many communities and manufac-
turers. It plays an important role in economic development
in many developing countries, especially in water shortage
countries such as Pacific Asia, Africa and Middle East
countries (Shatat et al. ).
There have been several recent developments in water
desalination techniques, including membrane distillation
(MD). MD is considered a valid alternative to traditional
desalination techniques such as coupling to reverse osmosis
(RO), also called ‘integrated membrane systems’, or multi-
stage flash vaporization (MSFV). MD is less influenced by
osmotic pressure than RO, and consumes less energy than
MSFV. According to which pattern is used to condense vola-
tile components in the permeate side of the system, MD can
be classified into the following four structures: (i) direct con-
tact MD (Gryta & Barancewicz ; Teoh et al. ; Yu
 17 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017

et al. ); (ii) air gap MD (Banat et al. ; Yao et al. );
(iii) sweeping gas MD (Rivier et al. ; Cojocaru & Khayet
); and (iv) vacuum MD (VMD) (Porter ; Bandini
et al. , ; Sarti et al. ; Bandini & Sarti ;
Zhao et al. ). MD can be applied in many fields. A pre-
vious study confirmed that benzene and heavy metals can
be removed from water by MD for environmental appli-
cations (El-Bourawi et al. ; Khayet ; Susanto ;
Alkhudhiri et al. ), for example, and another suggested
that MD can be applied successfully in the food industry,
where concentrated fruit juices and sugar solutions can be
prepared with better flavor and color using MD with a low
operating temperature (Calabro et al. ). Research has
also shown that high-temperature MD can be applied suc-
cessfully in the medical field to sterilize biological fluids
(Sakai et al. ).
Although MD has many attractive features, such as the
possibility of coupling to low-grade sources of energy, it has
not yet been commercialized for large-scale desalination
plants due to technical problems involving low flux and mem-
brane wetting. These, and other design drawbacks, are
expected to be overcome because a wealth of research has
gone into developing MD components and processes, includ-
ing membranes (Sakai et al. ; Calabro et al. ; Lawson
& Lloyd ; Susanto ). Researchers have highlighted the
possibility that MD can be integrated with renewable and low-
grade energy sources such as solar and wind, which offers
promising techniques (Cabassud & Wirth ; Xu et al.
). Solar energy, low-grade waste heat, and geothermal
energy represent favorable alternative sources. Koschikowski
et al. () showed a solar thermal-driven spiral wound poly-
tetrafluoroethylene MD module was used to obtain potable
water from brackish water and seawater in another study.
Aybar () reported an inclined solar water distillation
2 Membrane inner diameter (μm)
system can generate 3.5–5.4 kg (per m absorber plate area)
distilled water during a normal summer day in North
The NF þ SWRO integrated system proved an effective pre-
treatment for seawater desalination.
There have been relatively few studies on solar-energy-
integrated VMD systems for seawater desalination. The pre-
sent study designed and built a new type of solar-energy-
integrated VMD system for seawater desalination. The
objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of
the proposed system to produce fresh water from natural
seawater during a typical summer day in Wuhan, China.
Changes in ambient temperature and solar intensity with
time were measured, as well as temperature changes of the
feed seawater, seawater in the solar collector, seawater in
the solar cooker, glass lid, evaporator, vapor, fresh water,
and strong brine with time. The quality and quantity of
fresh water output from the system were also tested. The
results altogether confirmed the feasibility of producing
fresh water with solar-energy-integrated VMD systems.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Materials
Shade type hydrophobic hollow-fiber membrane module
was from China Hangzhou Haotian Membrane Separation
Technology Co., Ltd. The membrane component parameters
are reported in Table 1. Seawater was taken from the South
China Sea. The characteristics of natural seawater are listed
in Table 2.
Table 1 | Membrane component parameters
Value or
Parameter definition
Membrane material Polypropylene
250–300
Membrane outer diameter (μm) 350–400

Cyprus. Asadi et al. () have shown that solar still systems Membrane pore size (μm) 0.1–0.2

can remove inorganic, organic, and bacteriological contami- Wall thickness (μm) 40–50

nants quite effectively; a test system proved extremely Porosity (%) 40–50

successful in removing such contaminants from wastewater. Tensile strength (Mpa) 120

Kaya et al. () developed a single NF (nanofiltration) and pH 0–14

SWRO (seawater reverse osmosis) membranes, as well as an Membrane area (m2) 2

NF þ SWRO integrated system, which were tested in terms Dimensions of membrane module (mm): 810 × 520
(length × width)
of permeate quality and quantity using natural seawater.
 18 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017

Table 2 | Characteristics of natural seawater seawater is put into the seawater tank and enters the heat
exchanger via the first peristaltic pump, where natural sea-
Parameter Unit Value
water is preheated by vapor. Next, seawater enters the solar
pH – 7.88
collector via the second peristaltic pump, where it is
W
Temperature C 20
heated. Seawater then flows into the solar hot water tank
Salinity psu 15
and is heated again in the solar cooker. After being
Turbidity NTU 10.8
heated a total of three times, the seawater enters the
EC mS/cm 20.7
VMD evaporator and flows down through the hole in the
SS (mg/L) 4.0
support plate; at this time, the membrane module is hung
TDS (mg/L) 10,310
above the support plate, and then the hot seawater evapor-
TOC (mg/L) 4.38
ates slowly into vapor. The vapor passes through the
Total bacterial count CFU/mL 24,100
membrane hole from the hot side of the membrane
COD (mg/L) 16.8
module into the cold side of the membrane module,
Naþ (mg/L) 4,316.5
where the circulating water vacuum pump reduces the
Mg2þ (mg/L) 504.3
pressure. The vapor is then pumped into the heat exchan-
Ca2þ (mg/L) 204.1
ger where heat exchange with natural seawater takes
Kþ (mg/L) 175.6
place, thus condensing the vapor as fresh water. The
Sr2þ (mg/L) 3.47
strong brine left after desalination is recycled into the sea-
Cl (mg/L) 7,795.5
water tank and mixed with natural seawater to obtain a
SO24 (mg/L) 1,115.8
higher feed temperature, but in a practical application,
Br (mg/L) 38.1
the strong brine goes directly into the ocean.
F (mg/L) 0.54

psu, practical salinity units; NTU, nephelometric turbidity unit; ms/cm, milli Siemens per Analytical methods
cm; CFU, colony forming units.

System performance was mainly tested in terms of fresh

Experimental system descriptions
A schematic diagram of the system is shown in Figure 1, a sim-
plified schematic diagram is shown in Figure 2, and a photo of
the system is shown in Figure 3. A miniature, pilot-scale sea-
water desalination system was installed on the Wuhan
Textile University laboratory building roof (Wuhan City,
Hubei Province, China). The system module characteristics
are listed in Table 3. The complete system consists of a sea-
water tank, solar collector, solar cooker, inclined VMD
evaporator, circulating water vacuum pump, heat exchanger,
fresh water tank, and brine tank. The system is equipped with
a rotating base that can be adjusted manually according to the
position of the sun, allowing the system to fully receive the
available solar radiation. Thermometers were installed on
the inlet and outlet of all pipes in the system to gather data
for subsequent analysis.
water quality and quantity. The quantity of fresh water
was checked according to membrane flux and retention
rate, and the quality of fresh water (and seawater) was ana-
lyzed according to salinity, conductivity, temperature
measurements, and total dissolved solids (TDS) content,
determined using a portable HACH Sension5 conductivity
meter. The pH values were measured with a digital pH
meter (Sartorius PB-10). Suspended solids (SS) content
was measured according to the weight method, and chemi-
cal oxygen demand (COD) was determined by the basic
potassium permanganate method. Total organic carbon
(TOC) was determined using a TOC analyzer (Multi N/
C2100) and the total number of bacteria was counted by
plate count method. The Naþ, Mg2þ, Ca2þ, Kþ, and Sr2þ
ion concentrations were each measured with an atomic
absorption spectrophotometer (GBC AVANTA M
Model). The Cl, SO2  
4 , Br , and F ion levels were deter-

As shown in Figures 1 and 2, the operation process of mined with ion chromatography equipment (ICS 900
the system includes the following steps. First, natural model).
 19 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017

Figure 1 | Schematic diagram of test system.

Figure 2 | Simplified schematic diagram.

Calculations

Membrane flux (J ) was the amount of liquid produced per

unit area of a membrane surface per unit of time. Retention
Figure 3 | Photo of test system.
rate (η) was the percentage of dissolved solids intercepted by
the membrane that occupied the total quantity of the solute
in the solution. Due to the ratio of NaCl concentration and following equations:
its conductivity being approximate to constant, when the
 
retention rate was calculated, conductivity was used instead kg W
J ¼ (1)
of concentration. They were calculated using the m2  h St
 20 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017

Table 3 | Characteristics of system module

Main device Parameter Value or definition

Solar collector
Material of solar collector All-glass vacuum tube
Number of tubes 12
Heat absorption efficiency (W/cm2·h) 850
Effective heat absorbing area (m2) 1.62
Evaporator
Material of evaporator Stainless steel
Material of glass lid Hollow toughened glass
Heat-absorbing aluminum Magnetron sputter blue film
W
Glass angle ( ) 30
Dimensions of evaporator
Length (m) 1.90
Width (m) 0.95
Height (m) 0.3
Water inlet Top of evaporator
Material of the support plate Stainless steel
No. of the support plate 4
Height of the support plate (cm) 5
Diameter of the hole (cm) 2.5
No. of the hole (each support plate) 3
Solar cooker
Material of solar cooker Carbon steel plate
Stove diameter (m) 1.80
Focal length (m) 0.68
W
Focal spot temperature ( C) 1,100
Effective heat absorbing area (m2) 2.20
Concentration ratio 8/45
Sunny day power (W) 2,000
Seawater tank
Material of the seawater tank Stainless steel
Dimensions of seawater tank
Length (m) 0.60
Width (m) 0.30
Height (m) 0.30
Solar hot water tank
Material of solar hot water tank Stainless steel cylinder, black
Dimensions of solar hot water tank
Diameter (m) 0.32
Height (m) 0.15
Heat exchanger
Dimensions of heat exchanger
Length (m) 0.20
Width (m) 0.20
Height (m) 0.40
S-type heat exchanger coil (m) 9.42
Brine tank
Dimensions of brine tank
Length (m) 0.20
Width (m) 0.20
Height (m) 0.40

(continued)
 21 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017

Table 3 | continued

Main device Parameter Value or definition

Vacuum pump
Power (W) 180
Voltage/frequency (V/Hz) 220/5
Flow (L/min) 60
Maximum vacuum degree (Mpa) 0.098
Peristaltic pump
Power (W) 200
Range of speed 60–600 rpm
Rotate base
Dimensions of rotating base
Length (m) 5
Width (m) 1.2
Material of rotating base Steel

ðρh  ρc Þ
ηð%Þ ¼ (2)
ρh

where W, S, t, ρh, and ρc are fresh water quantity (kg), the

effective area of the membrane (m2), operation time (h),
the conductivity of natural seawater (mS/cm), and the con-
ductivity of fresh water (mS/cm), respectively.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The system operated from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm on August 22nd,

2015, a day which had normal weather and good air quality.
When the system is running, the quantity of feed seawater
was set to 220 L, seawater inlet flow was set to 20 L/h, and
the vacuum degree of the cold side was set to 0.095 Mpa. All
tests were performed and repeated in the same environment.
Changes of ambient temperature and solar radiation
intensity
Figure 4 | Ambient temperature and hourly average of solar radiation intensity with time.
radiation intensity was between 744 and 1,080 W/m2. Solar
intensity increased as the ambient temperature rose; the two
values form a parabola when plotted. The highest ambient temp-
W
erature, 33 C, was recorded at 2:00 pm; solar radiation intensity
reached its peak value of 1,080 W/m2 at the same time.

Figure 4 shows the changes in ambient temperature and hourly
average of solar radiation intensity with time. Over the course of
the operation time, both ambient temperature and solar radi-
ation intensity with time increased at first, and then decreased.
Meteorological data showed that the average ambient tempera-
W
ture was between 26 and 33 C, and that the average solar
Temperature changes of feed seawater, solar collector
seawater, solar cooker seawater, glass lid, evaporator,
vapor, fresh water, and strong brine
Temperature changes in the hourly average of the feed sea-
water, the seawater in the solar collector, and the seawater in
 22 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system
the solar cooker, as well as the glass lid, evaporator, vapor,
fresh water, and strong brine with time were measured as
shown in Figure 5. The temperature of feed seawater rose con-
tinually throughout the operation process as strong brine was
recycled into the seawater tank and mixed with seawater,
and as feed seawater was heated by the vapor in the heat
exchanger. Throughout the test day, the seawater temperature
in the solar collector and solar cooker first increased while
solar radiation intensity increased, then decreased as solar
radiation intensity decreased. The temperature of the evapor-
ator was lower than that of the solar cooker, naturally,
because seawater temperature increased in the cooker then
lost heat during evaporation. Fresh water temperature was
lower than vapor temperature, because vapor in the heat
exchanger was condensed by feed seawater until becoming
fresh water. The above temperature measurements altogether
prove that it is feasible to heat seawater by using a solar
collector coupled with a solar cooker.
Change of membrane flux
A hydrophobic, hollow-fiber membrane module was employed
in this study. The performance of the system was evaluated in
terms of both the quality and quantity of fresh water produced.
The quantity of fresh water was checked by membrane flux;
Figure 5 | Temperature changes of feed seawater, solar collector seawater, solar cooker
seawater, glass lid, vapor, fresh water, strong brine, and evaporator with time.
Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017
changes in membrane flux over time are shown in Figure 6.
The hydrophobic, hollow-fiber membrane exhibited different
fresh water production outputs and membrane flux values at
different times during the test process. At 2:00 pm, at
0.095 Mpa vacuum degree on the cold side, the maximum
value for membrane flux was 7.88 kg/m2h. As seawater temp-
erature increased, steam partial pressure of the membrane on
the hot side plus the driving force of the steam through the
membrane increased, thus causing increased membrane flux.
As mentioned above, at 2:00 pm, the seawater temperature in
the solar cooker also reached its maximum value.
Changes of fresh water electrical conductivity and
retention rate
Figure 7 shows the measured changes in fresh water electrical
conductivity (EC) and retention rate over time during the test
period. The retention rate was between 99.67 and 99.987%,
and the EC was between 0.00276 and 0.0673 mS/cm, con-
firming that the hydrophobic, polypropylene hollow-fiber
membrane module provided favorable separation perform-
ance to the experiment. At 2:00 pm, when the seawater
temperature of the evaporator reached its maximum value,
the retention rate reduced slightly; elevated feed seawater
temperatures caused thermal motion to increase in the
NaCl solution ions, thereby forcing an increased amount of
gas phase ions through the membrane module.
Figure 6 | Membrane flux changes over time.
 23 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination | 07.1 | 2017

96.83%, 99.95–99.99%, 99.68–99.95%, and above 93%, respect-

ively. In the literature, Kaya et al. () also showed a similar
rejection value by NF90 (30 bar) þ SW30–RO (40 bar) combi-
nation; their average removal rates of TDS, Naþ, Mg2þ, Ca2þ,
Kþ, Cl and SO2
4 were 98.89%, 98.94%, over 99.991%,
99.43%, 99.02%, 99.03%, and over 99.994%. These results
altogether confirm that the test system desalinated seawater
very effectively.
The design advantages of this device can be summarized
according to three major aspects: (i) the rotating base, which
can be manually adjusted to suit the sun’s position and fully
exploit all available solar energy radiation; (ii) the solar collec-
Figure 7 | Fresh water EC and retention rate changes with time. tor coupled with the solar cooker to build the solar energy heat
system, in which seawater can be rapidly heated to obtain very
Characteristics of fresh water obtained by the system high water flux; and (iii) the hydrophobic, polypropylene
hollow-fiber membrane module used for water vapor separ-
Table 4 lists the characteristics of fresh water obtained by the ation, which ensures high-quality fresh water.
test system. The average removal rates of SS, TDS, TOC,
COD, Naþ, Mg2þ, Ca2þ, Kþ, Sr2þ, Cl, SO2
4 and F were
CONCLUSIONS
50–70%, 99.68–99.99%, 68–94%, 97.56–97.86%, 99.942–
99.996%, 99.677–99.996%, 97.09–99.86%, 99.47–99.91%, over
In this study, a new type of solar-energy-integrated VMD
system for seawater desalination was designed and tested
Table 4 | Characteristics of fresh water
under actual environmental conditions in Wuhan, China.
Parameter Unit Value (min–max) The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of using
pH – 7.57–7.64 solar-energy-integrated VMD to obtain fresh water from natu-
Temperature
W
C 27.4–27.5 ral seawater during a typical day, and to test the performance
Salinity Psu 0 of the system in terms of both the quality and quantity of
Turbidity NTU 0.17–0.23 fresh water produced. According to our experimental results,
EC mS/cm 0.00276–0.0673 the solar collector and solar cooker showed favorable perform-
SS (mg/L) 1.2–2.0 ance related to temperature, membrane flux increased as
TDS (mg/L) 1.2–33.4 seawater temperature increased, and the system was able to
TOC (mg/L) 0.28–1.39 generate 36 kg (per m2 membrane module) distilled fresh
Total bacterial count CFU/mL 1–16 water during the test day (7:00 am until 6:00 pm). The retention
COD (mg/L) 0.36–0.41 rate was between 99.67 and 99.987%, EC was between
Na þ
(mg/L) 0.19–2.50 0.00276 and 0.0673 mS/cm, and the average salt rejection
Mg2þ (mg/L) 0.02–1.63 was above 90%. These results altogether confirm that solar
Ca 2þ
(mg/L) 0.28–5.94 energy integrated with VMD is an appropriate and effective
Kþ (mg/L) 0.15–0.93 combination for seawater desalination systems.
2þ
Sr (mg/L) <0.11

Cl (mg/L) 0.612–4.053
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SO2
4 (mg/L) 0.608–3.598
Br (mg/L) Not detected
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial
F (mg/L) <0.039
support provided by the National ‘Twelfth Five-Year’ Plan
 24 F. Wang et al. | Seawater desalination with solar-energy-integrated membrane distillation system
for Science & Technology Support of China (No.
2014BAC13B02) and the National Science Foundation of
China (NSFC) (No. 21377023).
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